


Greek Values Dissonance

by WinterEyes



Category: Atlantis (UK TV)
Genre: Ficlet, Gen, Jason/Pythagoras Friendship, Oblique references to classical myth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-17
Updated: 2014-01-17
Packaged: 2018-01-09 01:38:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1139912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterEyes/pseuds/WinterEyes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason has a minor slip in his positive outlook but a friend's support is not far away</p>
            </blockquote>





	Greek Values Dissonance

Jason sat miserably clutching his knees, trying to swallow past the burning in his throat. He had been fine until he saw that market stall, the one selling the same patterned rug he had lugged between every student flat and temporary home since his father had brought it back from Greece one distant summer ago. Even then he had held off homesickness…until he got back to an absence of the only two people that kept him connected to the dream that his life had become, leaving loneliness to creep up on him and sink its hooks in deep. He took a deep breath, trying to lump everything together and push it back – so far down he could pretend it was never there.

A whisper of cloth and bump of bony shoulder  made Jason raise his head, cursing inwardly that he had company before control and couldn’t force the innocuous smile that had stood him so well in the past.

“Jason, have you been crying?”

“No,” he scoffed, trying to sound incredulous and instead sounding like a teenager trying to lie for the first time.

“Why not?”

Jason snorted, checking Pythagoras’ face for any hint of mockery.

“’Cause I’m a guy? You know - ‘suck it up’, ‘play through the pain’…you must have some equivalent?”

Pythagoras shook his head slowly, his expression the familiar confusion that appeared whenever Jason let a modern expression slip.

“Actually I’m totally lost.”

Jason sighed and changed tack.

“Fine, let’s just say that where I come from it is generally considered weak for men to cry…and most other men would rather lose a limb than ask about it.”

If anything, Pythagoras’ look of confusion deepened.

“Then you must come from further away than I thought. I’m not saying you wouldn’t get some odd looks if you start weeping in the street but alone, in your own home? You must all go quietly mad if you can’t show if you care about things, if you have to let it all fester inside.”

Jason’s mouth took a sceptical twist.

“So you’re saying Hercules…?”

“Like a baby, at the drop of a hat. Honest, I swear.”

The two of them only managed seconds of a straight face before glancing at each other and dissolving into smothered laughter. Jason flung an arm around Pythagoras as they both got to their feet.

“You win…next time I feel homesick I’ll think of Hercules and burst into tears.”

Pythagoras glanced at Jason, glad to see him relaxed and joking again.

_‘Distraction achieved.”_

 

**Author's Note:**

> This is what happens when a minor knowledge of Greek heroic tradition is applied to a BBC fantasy drama. Was originally meant to be a drabble but grew, consider this a half-way house for the longer story I promise is in the works.


End file.
